Search

A
A+
A++

Reality Check

cbs4denver.com Showcase

Celebs In Town For DNC More

Digg |

Facebook | E-mail | Print

May 21, 2008 6:54 pm US/Mountain

Democratic Delegate Count Gets A Reality Check

Reporting
Raj Chohan

DENVER (CBS4) ―

Barrack Obama has all but claimed the Democratic nomination, but Hillary Clinton insists she's still in the race.

It takes 2,026 delegates to win the nomination. According to CBS News, Obama has 1,953, while Clinton has 1,770. While she's behind in delegates, Clinton insists she's ahead in the popular vote.

The message coming from the two Democrats running for president may seem a little confusing. On the one hand there's Barrack Obama, who's won the majority of pledged delegates.

Obama: "We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people."

The claim is true, at this point it's impossible for Clinton to catch Obama in pledged delegates. Her only chance is to win over uncommitted super delegates. Her key argument is that she's more electable. What's her proof? She claims she's ahead in the popular vote.

Clinton: "It may surprise you to learn that I have more votes than my opponent..."

Here's the spin. You literally have to torture the numbers to come up with the conclusion that Clinton has more votes than Obama.

First, the Clinton math requires leaving out the caucus states of Iowa, Nevada, Maine and Washington, which have not released official vote totals, although estimates show those states broke for Obama by about 100,000 votes.

Next, you have to add-in the tallies of Florida and Michigan, two states that favored Clinton, but whose delegates haven't been counted yet because the state parties were penalized for moving up their primaries.

Even if you did all that, you'd have to make one more assumption under Clinton math that's just absurd. You'd have to somehow believe Obama would have gotten zero votes from Michigan, a state in which his name didn't even appear on the ballot because he agreed not to campaign there.

In fact, even if you cook up the numbers in a way that's most favorable to Clinton, she would barely squeak ahead of Obama. The margin, probably about 60,000 votes. That's hardly a convincing case to the super-delegates who ultimately get to settle the matter.

Bottom line, Barrack Obama almost certainly has more popular votes than Hillary Clinton. Her only real chance at this point is if Obama has an eleventh hour implosion, some new scandal that would make him truly unelectable, even among Democrats.

Source Articles:

RCP: 2008 Democratic Popular Vote